Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1898 — SHE WAS A GRATEFUL WOMAN. [ARTICLE]

SHE WAS A GRATEFUL WOMAN.

• - A Bailor Spina a Yarft of L»re and Romance Ending Happily. A lot of sailors who go down to the sea in ships of any kind in which the oystermen navigate the raging Potomac, were sitting on the deck of the Mary Jane at the foot of 7th street two or three days ago, talking between jobs and smoking a pipe apiece. The subject of the conversation was love and .romance, and each man was taking his ’turn telling where he had first met his wife and how, or, if he had not met her, then telling how he would like to. At last they eame to the homeliest man Wi the lot, and It seemed hardly necessary to ask him for a story, because by common acceptance only the beautiful •move in the charmed circle of romance. However, he did not wAlt to be asked. “I guess I was the bashfulest man on the earth’s surface,” he said, with a slight hitch In bls speech, "and not much prettier than I was nervy, and a man like that has got up-hill goin’ all the way when he tackles anything in petticoats. Well, there was a girl in Baltimore that I set a lot by, but somehow I got worse every time I saw her, more particular if I tried to talk business to her. One day I pearted up and told her she ought to git married. It was the truth, too, for she was gittih’ older every minute and was already past thirty, aud I was two years older. She wasn’t pretty enough neither to fade a carpet, but she had good health and good sense and I'd a’ been glad enough to have her if I’d had the nerve to ask her. Well,, when I told her she ought to git married she told me she would if I would find a man for her. Wanting to let her see I had her best interests at heart I got to work, and in a month I had a right nice widower with three children settin’ up to her for all he was worth. Then he asked her, and she come right to me with the news and she was the gratefulest woman I evertsee. Said she couldn’t tell me how grateful she was; said If it hadn't been for me she never would have found a man to marry; said she couldn’t tell me how grateful she was; said there wasn’t words enough; said she was so grateful that she would be willing to marry me instead of the widower; said—but she didn’t say any more. It was my turn then, aud somehow the idee that somebody else was going to git her give me the sand I needed in my craw and I just reached out and took her in. That was ten years ago, and all I’m sorry for now Is that I lost so much time foolin’ around before I got her.” —Washington Star.